So who killed Penelope?

[Peelee]

But the way the spell is designed, it will create people who just lost their entire family, and don't have anything left to lose : If your spouse was a stage one victim, then stage 2 just killed every one of your children, but left you alive.

No. If your spouse was a stage one victim, then stage 1 just killed every one of your children, and Stage 2 kills you. That's pretty much exactly how Penelope died.

[factotum]

No. If your spouse was a stage one victim, then stage 1 just killed every one of your children, and Stage 2 kills you. That's pretty much exactly how Penelope died.

Penelope is the poster child for why this leaves vengeful families behind, though, because sure, she got killed in stage 2 and if she'd had a child with Tarquin they would have died in that stage as well--however, Tarquin himself, and his other children (e.g. Nale and Elan), would *not* be affected, because they don't share blood with anyone killed in stage 1.

[Peelee]

Penelope is the poster child for why this leaves vengeful families behind, though, because sure, she got killed in stage 2 and if she'd had a child with Tarquin they would have died in that stage as well--however, Tarquin himself, and his other children (e.g. Nale and Elan), would *not* be affected, because they don't share blood with anyone killed in stage 1.

I dunno, I'd say that's an uncommon situation; the crafter of the spell probably assumed a large percentage of stable, monogamous relationships, it seems.

ETA: Not to mention that even Tarquin, renowned for his pettiness, ended up throwing his hands in the air about what happened.

[Jasdoif]

I dunno, I'd say that's an uncommon situation; the crafter of the spell probably assumed a large percentage of stable, monogamous relationships, it seems.

And children too, apparently.

[Doug Lampert]

As I've pointed out before, we know that the ABD had good relations with one other dragon.

She mentions that she was visiting with her son's uncle when he was killed...

Assuming marriage and monogamy, there are 4 possible relationships that make someone your son's uncle.
1) Your brother.
2) Your sister's husband.
3) Your husband's brother.
4) Your husband's sister's husband.

Note that ONE and ONLY ONE of these is guaranteed to get the other dragon killed, and it's the one where you'd pretty well never say "I was visiting my son's uncle" since you have a perfectly good "I was visiting my brother" as an alternative which is shorter, carries all the same information, and carries substantially more information to boot.

So there's an excellent chance that the uncle wasn't killed unless there was a separate, second connection not mentioned.

I'm fairly sure she also mentioned "that nice green dragon" as a possible match for her son. Another dragon that wouldn't get killed by familicide.

As a method of preventing vengeance by killing everyone that might want revenge, Familicide is a disaster, "I'll just kill a bunch of uninvolved people based on rather arbitrary criteria and then hope/assume that none of THEM have relatives who'll want vengeance."

You've gone from maybe one dragon wanting revenge, to probably almost every surviving black dragon (and 3/4ths are estimated to have lived) wanting revenge. It would work fine in our world where it simply kills absolutely everybody, but in TOotS world it's completely useless for V's claimed intended purpose.

[Quebbster]

I don't think anyone has ever claimed Familicide was a well-designed spell. It filled its role in the story though.

[Theshipening]

I think someone said it already, but the spell clearly wasn’t designed to stop vengeance. That was at best V not thinking the spell through, and at worst V rationalizing their actions to themselves. Haerta “Destroy anyone who has ever slighted you” Bloodsoak Destroyer of Hope probably wasn’t concerned with vengeance, just with inflincting as much pain, suffering and crushing despair on the victim as possible.

[Fyraltari]

I

ETA: Not to mention that even Tarquin, renowned for his pettiness, ended up throwing his hands in the air about what happened.

If only there were some way of magically getting information. Like some people with a special connection to the gods who could answer any question about the future present or past. We could call them... oracles? Nah, doesn’t sound mystical enough. How about augurs?

[Rogar Demonblud]

How about Diviners?

[Peelee]

If only there were some way of magically getting information. Like some people with a special connection to the gods who could answer any question about the future present or past. We could call them... oracles? Nah, doesn’t sound mystical enough. How about augurs?

People who see the future can usually avoid people when they want.

[Fyraltari]

People who see the future can usually avoid people when they want.

And your point is?

[Peelee]

And your point is?

The fact that such people exist does not imply that a given person has access to them.

[Fyraltari]

The fact that such people exist does not imply that a given person has access to them.

True, true. But Familicide has a way of getting a whole lotta people involved.

[a_flemish_guy]

not to mention who else got involved

the only reason tiamat herself didn't go after V was because the IFFC managed to make a deal

familicide at this point is the equivalent of shooting a member of each of the mob families in town and a cop as well

[Peelee]

not to mention who else got involved

the only reason tiamat herself didn't go after V was because the IFFC managed to make a deal

familicide at this point is the equivalent of shooting a member of each of the mob families in town and a cop as well

I think Tiamat didn't get involved because gods can't directly act on the Material Plane.

[Grey Watcher]

...

Assuming marriage and monogamy, there are 4 possible relationships that make someone your son's uncle.
1) Your brother.
2) Your sister's husband.
3) Your husband's brother.
4) Your husband's sister's husband.

Note that ONE and ONLY ONE of these is guaranteed to get the other dragon killed, and it's the one where you'd pretty well never say "I was visiting my son's uncle" since you have a perfectly good "I was visiting my brother" as an alternative which is shorter, carries all the same information, and carries substantially more information to boot.

So there's an excellent chance that the uncle wasn't killed unless there was a separate, second connection not mentioned.

...

Wait, aren't TWO of those a a guaranteed kill, given how Familicide is described?

The first step kills everyone with whom you share a common ancestor or descendant, so your brother dies because you share ancestors (your parents) and your husband dies because you share descendants (your child). Note that this step can kill you even if the connecting people are already dead.

The second step kills everyone who shares a common ancestor or descendant with anyone killed in in the first step. So in that case, your husband's brother definitely dies because they share ancestors (their parents).

(Sister's husband and husband's sister's husband depend, I think, on who has or hasn't had children.)

But your overall point is still correct, that Familicide is a poor tool for V's stated goal of preventing revenge, since it completely ignores friendships, adoptions, childless marriages and relationships, beloved mentors and students, comrades-in-arms and all the other ways people relate to each other that have nothing to do with biological relation.

Also everything else that's horribly wrong with using that spell for any reason.

Also technically, it should be "Assuming marriage, monogamy, and heterosexuality"

[Peelee]

Also technically, it should be "Assuming marriage, monogamy, and heterosexuality"

....and progeny.

[Grey Watcher]

....and progeny.

Implicit in the phrase "son's uncle", which could refer to a hypothetical son anyway, so there!

[Peelee]

Implicit in the phrase "son's uncle", which could refer to a hypothetical son anyway, so there!

But adoption exists, as evidenced by V's family, so I felt that biological children was as much an assumption as heterosexuality, is all.

[Grey Watcher]

But adoption exists, as evidenced by V's family, so I felt that biological children was as much an assumption as heterosexuality, is all.

True, but in that particular sentence Doug's not talking about the effects of Familicide, merely defining "son's uncle" in preparation of said topic.

[Doug Lampert]

Wait, aren't TWO of those a a guaranteed kill, given how Familicide is described?

The first step kills everyone with whom you share a common ancestor or descendant, so your brother dies because you share ancestors (your parents) and your husband dies because you share descendants (your child). Note that this step can kill you even if the connecting people are already dead.

Your husband is not a listed alternative for who your son's uncle is. It's your brother, your husband's brother, your sister's husband, and your husband's sister's brother.

And in any case, nope, the first step is if YOU share blood with them, it goes back to your most distant ancestor and then traces down to the present along all lines, that doesn't necessarily hit your husband.

[Jasdoif]

And in any case, nope, the first step is if YOU share blood with them, it goes back to your most distant ancestor and then traces down to the present along all lines, that doesn't necessarily hit your husband.

Exactly.

While it's true that your son is related by blood to your husband's brother (your son's paternal grandparents are your husband's parents, so at least one of them is your husband's brother's parent), for it to cascade from there requires the son to have been killed by Familicide; which isn't the case in the comic (and thus certainly isn't guaranteed).

[Grey Watcher]

Your husband is not a listed alternative for who your son's uncle is. It's your brother, your husband's brother, your sister's husband, and your husband's sister's brother.

And in any case, nope, the first step is if YOU share blood with them, it goes back to your most distant ancestor and then traces down to the present along all lines, that doesn't necessarily hit your husband.

Forgive me, I may be misremembering, but I thought it had been established somewhere that "sharing blood" was defined as having a common ancestor or descendant; it goes up and comes back down as you describe, but simultaneously goes down and comes back up. Your husband dies not because he's an uncle (he's not, obviously) but because of the shared descendant (his and your son). And then, of course, the second wave comes and gets his siblings, meaning that #3 should be a definite kill.

Hey Banana Lady! Do you have a relevant quote in your bag of tricks?

Pelee, I think you were right about the "bit" part after all.

[Jasdoif]

Forgive me, I may be misremembering, but I thought it had been established somewhere that "sharing blood" was defined as having a common ancestor or descendant; it goes up and comes back down as you describe, but simultaneously goes down and comes back up.

If you're treating both steps as one operation, yes; but then you have to add the stipulation that a common descendant must have still been alive.

I really thought that last comic would end this debate, but it seems like there's still a lot of confusion. So here goes:

Step 1: Kill everyone with the original target's blood. This is a simple yes/no effect: Is a creature (the secondary target) related by blood to the original target at all, in any way? If yes, kill it. If no, move on. Number of generations or percentage of blood or direction doesn't matter.

Step 2: Kill everyone who shares blood with any of the people killed in Step 1. Think of it as killing everyone descended from (or siblings to) any and all still-living ancestors of each secondary target. So if Penelope had a grandfather on one side and a great-grandmother on the other side who were still alive, every person who could trace their blood back to either of those people would be dead, because Penelope's daughter carries both of their bloods. If a person can only trace their blood through (say) Penelope's already-dead great-great-great-grandfather, then they're safe. Thus cousins and second-cousins and the like are all dead, but more distant genetic relations are not. It is possible for some cousins to survive if all older generations were already dead, yes, but Vaarsuvius wasn't really likely to take the time to make that distinction while sobbing on a dungeon hallway floor.

Now for some anticipated FAQs:

That's not exactly what Vaarsvuius said when the spell was cast, though.
First, Vaarsvuius is prone to poetic word choice and had no particular reason to include various exceptions or inclusions while in the middle of punishing the dragon. Second, as the author, I also had an interest in not necessarily giving away the twist that the Draketooths would be killed two years ahead of time (leading me to choose words that maybe implied one thing while allowing for another). In other words, don't try to parse the language too precisely.

Wouldn't that spell kill everyone of the original target's species?
In our world? Maybe. The OOTS world is not ours, though. It was created fully populated, even with black dragons. So there could be 100 original black dragons who (as V noted) breed slowly over the relatively-short span of time the current world has been in existence, leading to one-quarter of them being wiped out. If it had been cast on a human first, it may well have taken half or more of the population with it, depending on how many Original Humans there had been and how much interbreeding had occurred. Good thing that's not what happened, right?

But if it worked like that, it would have [insert obscure effect proven with math]!
Yeah, well, it didn't. Why? I don't know. But it didn't. I guess that makes me a crappy writer because I didn't think of whatever implication you just thought of, but there it is. I'm not a biologist or a mathematician. If it makes you feel better, just assume that all the laws of heredity and genetics work differently because It's Magic™.

I hope this will end the endless debates. It's really quite simple, and if you're getting to a point where it seems utterly complicated or recursive or whatever, you're probably thinking about it more than I did.

So, just to be clear:

1.) The people created at the moment of the planet's creation were all unrelated to each other, or perhaps only related in small groups—a family of 5 or 10 might have been created, but with no relation to all the other families being simultaneously created. Why? Because.

2.) There is no reason to think that just because the comic shows something that it is statistically likely, or that the number of panels I draw of something is intended to be a statement about the frequency of such a thing. I do not draw the comic based on statistics or demographics, I draw it based on what looks good.

3.) Yes, the proof that not all humans have the blood of that specific black dragon is the fact that they didn't all die. Things aren't errors just because they don't support your preferred assumptions. It just means your assumptions are wrong.

4.) Explicitly, I am going to say that no black dragon, ever, in the history of the world, ever mated with any human being until Girard's grandparents. Some black dragons mated with other species, and some other colors of dragon mated with humans. But black dragons and humans? One time only in the history of OOTS-world. That's canon now. Done.

It's now impossible for any humans to have died other than the Draketooths and the families they intermingled with in the last 5 generations. And since Step 2 of the spell requires a LIVING link to keep the chain going, humans that have no living ancestors with those people are safe.

So, yeah. The spell works exactly as I explained, it's just the world that works differently than assumed. Which is exactly what I said the first time I explained how it worked.

[Peelee]

Peelee, I think you were right about the "bit" part after all.

I hope so, if I'm right on here one more time, the forum will finally unlock the smaller font size for me!

Fun fact, I tagged that as [SIZE=0] for the joke and it actually formatted!

[Grey Watcher]

If you're treating both steps as one operation, yes; but then you have to add the stipulation that a common descendant must have still been alive.

[Quote from Rich]

I think my confusion stems from this:

Step 1: Kill everyone with the original target's blood. This is a simple yes/no effect: Is a creature (the secondary target) related by blood to the original target at all, in any way? If yes, kill it. If no, move on. Number of generations or percentage of blood or direction doesn't matter.

The two bits I've highlighted would suggest to me that common descendants count as much as common ancestors, even before we get to the second wave. I... guess I could be completely misconstruing things, but I don't entirely grasp how?

Eh, in any event, the overall point that Familicide is really a poor tool for preventing vengeance because people form all kinds of close bonds that have nothing to do with biological relation is still entirely accurate. Also, everything else that's horribly wrong with using this spell under any circumstances.

[Jasdoif]

The two bits I've highlighted would suggest to me that common descendants count as much as common ancestors, even before we get to the second wave. I... guess I could be completely misconstruing things, but I don't entirely grasp how?

Distant ancestors no one knows/cares about aside, I am not related by blood to my sister's husband's siblings; even though my niece and nephew are related by blood to them, to the same degree they are to me. And the Giant explicitly said no such distant ancestors exist for the OOTS-world case.


"Common ancestor" is a shorthand for "'related by blood' by definition means 'sharing biological ancestors', without regard to whether those ancestors are still alive."

"Common descendant" is an abstraction, to be able to holistically talk about "any number of ancestors, of any number of descendants" instead of having to talk about each ancestor and each descendant individually. But that doesn't even come into play until step two.

[factotum]

I think Grey Watcher is possibly getting confused over which step Penelope dies in. She isn't related by blood to the black dragon, only her lost child is--so the child dies in step 1, and then Penelope herself is killed in step 2 as being a direct ancestor of the dead child. Tarquin is not related by blood to said child, so he does *not* die. Any children he had with Penelope would be fair game, but step 2 isn't recursive--it won't seek out Tarquin to die just because one of his children was killed at that stage.

[Grey Watcher]

Distant ancestors no one knows/cares about aside, I am not related by blood to my sister's husband's siblings; even though my niece and nephew are related by blood to them, to the same degree they are to me. And the Giant explicitly said no such distant ancestors exist for the OOTS-world case.


"Common ancestor" is a shorthand for "'related by blood' by definition means 'sharing biological ancestors', without regard to whether those ancestors are still alive."

"Common descendant" is an abstraction, to be able to holistically talk about "any number of ancestors, of any number of descendants" instead of having to talk about each ancestor and each descendant individually. But that doesn't even come into play until step two.

Ah, I think I've figured out what happened here!

First, regarding the colloquial "sharing/related by blood" versus its use in the comic and discussions thereof: I'm obviously familiar with the expression, but I tended to disregard it in this case because it seemed to be a "specific supersedes general" kind of situation. Rich was posting specifically to clarify what was meant by "sharing blood with someone," so I assumed that (for purposes of discussing Familicide) what I read in the post took precedence over my prior knowledge of the broader usage. And the key misunderstanding of mine led to me to believe that, unlike the colloquial usage, this "sharing blood with" meant "ancestor or descendent" rather than just "ancestor."

And that key misunderstanding? I parsed "any direction" to refer to "up or down" aka "ancestors or descendants." But it seems the consensus (and an interpretation consistent with the colloquial expression) is that "any direction" meant "matrilineally or patrilineally" ("left or right," if you will).

So that's where I got the idea that, had he still been alive at the time, Mama Black Dragon's husband would've been a Step 1 victim rather than a Step 2 victim. (And then extrapolating out from that to all the discussions about uncles and such.)

EDIT: I guess, in the most pedantically specific sense, I took "any direction" to mean both "ancestors or descendants" and "matrilineal or patrilineal." But I'm so used to treating the latter as implicitly part of either of the former (unless explicitly stated otherwise) that it never occurred to me the language might be pointing to it.

[whitehelm]

So that's where I got the idea that, had he still been alive at the time, Mama Black Dragon's husband would've been a Step 1 victim rather than a Step 2 victim. (And then extrapolating out from that to all the discussions about uncles and such.)

Their son wasn't a Step 1 victim since he was already dead, so her husband wouldn't have been a Step 2 victim either.